I Need You To Breath
by ManhattanWitch
Summary: Harry's soliloquy on life with Malfoy in and out of it. First person plot bunny strikes again! T-t-tease, i'm sorry your bithday present is late. Please like it? Please? lol


_I Need You To Breath_

_For tilly-tally-tease._

I never really saw myself as the type to fall in love. Well, not conventional love, anyway. I thought, maybe I'd admire someone from afar, maybe I might become intimate, but I never thought that I'd actually come to love someone with my entire being.

Shows what I know.

Because while I might have hated you, despised you and all you stood for, there was something about you that I could not ignore. It might have been the way you strode around as though you owned all you saw, might have been the way the sunlight or moonlight captured the arrogant gleam of your eyes. Whatever it was, whatever trick of the gods that made you as you are, is something I couldn't ignore.

So, being the fool I am, I tried to pass the feelings off as hatred, antipathy, anything but _love_. So I picked fights, I taunted and teased. And I made you hate me back.

But I could not ignore my yearnings completely- I had to have some interaction with you. So the fights continued, the passing of insults. As we grew, so too did our conflicts. Until one day, when you left. You walked away, _you left me_, and I couldn't understand, didn't _want _to understand how that made me feel.

No more fights, no more insults. Which meant no more contact, no more times for me to hear your voice, even if it was to curse my name and lineage. I couldn't disguise the fleeting caresses I gave you, because I never had an excuse to _touch_ you.

And it hurt. I felt it all the way to my soul, thought that my heart would stop if you left me along even one second longer. I needed you. But you weren't there. You didn't see what was happening to me. My friends couldn't understand why I was so withdrawn, so easily angered. They didn't understand that you were -_are_- my anchor.

You know, when you realize that you depend on someone to that extent, where you think their presence makes the sun shine even at night, and their absence stops your heart, it makes you re-evaluate what exactly you did to drive someone so vital away.

And when I realized that I needed you there so I could breath, it made such sudden, unavoidable sense. _This_ was the reason I'd haunted your steps since First Year. _This_ was the reason I'd picked fights. _This _was the reason I could not leave you alone.

It took me six years to see that I was in love, that I _loved_, my 'worst enemy'. That I couldn't imagine life without him.

I'll say this now, what I couldn't have said then- I love you, for ever and for always.

But just realizing it didn't mean that you would come back. It didn't mean that you could see the change in my affections. So I steeled myself, and went out to find you. And when I did, when I saw you for the first time in years, you made my breath stop.

The sun still worshipped your eyes, the moon still envied your skin. Gold could not compete with the brilliance of your hair, nor a choir of fallen angels with your voice.

I was still the bumbling idiot I'd been in school. But you smiled, when you saw me, smiled at _me_, and my heart soared. Try though I might, however, I couldn't talk, I could only stare, and your smile dimmed as you flushed, and turned away.

You couldn't go- _not again_- and so I grabbed your arm.

The look of haughty arrogance on your face was what made me loosen my grip, made my hand fall to my sides. And all I could do was breath your name.

I ducked my head as I turned away, dreading the insult I knew was coming. What came instead was a gentle hand under my chin, lifting my head and moving it so you could see into my eyes. Those eyes, that studied me so intently, were just as I remembered. But the emotions in them were a far cry from the distaste and arrogance I remembered seeing.

Instead, they gleamed softly, warmly, lovingly. Fingers lightly caressed my cheek, drawing over my jaw, chin, and lips. And my breath shuttered to a halt.

You said my name with a soft kind of wonder, as if you'd just completed a puzzle and finally saw the whole of it.

And when you murmured my name again, I felt your breath on my lips, felt the tips of your hair land gently on my cheek.

When you leaned in, I ached. When you hesitated, my heart stopped. But when you kissed me, I _breathed_.

For the first time in years, I could breath freely. It felt as though life was creeping through my veins. I thought the sun was shining from where our lips met. I _knew _the sun was shining.

When we finally needed air -because air and breathing are not the same- I laughed. Not loudly, no- softly, wonderingly, awed that I finally had that which I thought to be impossible.

But you didn't understand, you were leaning away from me. So I did that which I hoped would convince you to stay. I kissed you, again and again and again.

And when kissing became deeper, more intimate, I gladly followed, with laugher and the sun and the thought of _You_ thundering in my blood.

And I realized what I should have known from the very beginning- that you are my sun, my moon. That you my laughter and my light.

That I need you to breath,

… … …

_Happy Birthday, dear-heart. I know it isn't exactly what I promised, but I hope you enjoy it anyway._

_MannyWitch_


End file.
